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5 Things You Need To Know About Display Homes Before You Visit

Before I met The Builder, I was a regular visitor to display homes. You could almost say I was addicted to the dream of building a new home. I have a rather different perspective on them now that I work within the industry, though I still love to visit for ideas.

5 Tips For When Visiting Display Homes

Best In Show

The idea of a display home is to sell, however that is really difficult to remember when you walk in the door and instantly fall in love. Spec home builders will often have 3 or more versions of a plan, ranging in size from small to large. The display home will always be the biggest of these plans, sometimes even with extras, for example patios, or deck, outdoor entertainment areas or garages. It is a great idea to ask about the floor plan prior to entering the home, ask if it is available in smaller sizes to help keep in perspective what you would actually receive for your money.

Upgrades, Upgrades, Upgrades

Display homes are built with all the bells and whistles, never with the standard range of fixtures and fittings like most homes are actually constructed with. Those gorgeous European appliances are not included with the base price, nor are the light fittings, or the stone bench tops. When inquiring about the display home, check what inclusions are included for the base model and assume everything else is ‘dressing’.

Quality

Display homes are built to the finest standard of the builders quality, however this may not always be true indicator of the quality you can expect to find in your own build. If an option, it is always better to see a home built by your chosen builder, after a family have lived in it for some time. This will give you a fairer understanding of the quality of the tradespeople used.

Interior Design

I confess one of the reasons I love visiting display homes, is to immerse myself in the interior design. This interior design is created for the sole purpose of making your fall in love with the home. It’s a sale tool, used for the same benefit of staging a home for sale. The idea is to have you make an emotional connection with the home, because that’s where the sales pitch starts.

Sales Staff

At the end of your adventure checking out the gorgeous display home, you will find the sales staff. Their job is to tap into the emotional connection you have just made with the home and get you on-board as a client for their builder. This will be your first contact with the company until you move through to the construction phase, at which time you will be handed over to your site contact. The sales staff are excellent at their job, and can be very persuasive when necessary. If you are keen to work with the builder of the home you have just visited, I would strongly suggest having a list of questions ready for the sale staff once you reach their station. These people will be very knowledgeable on the processes of the company and likely to be your best source of information.

Visiting display homes can be a valuable exercise when you are looking to build a home. If you remember these 5 key points you will be best situated to take the most out of the experience.

Are you looking to build a home? Have you visited a display home recently?

nicole

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5 Comments

We visited a display home – one of the many new build apartments that are all over our hood! As you so rightly point out, everything was top end PLUS although that wasn’t made explicitly clear, only when we asked a member of the sales team. The show flat was also on a high floor too, many of the apartments would be lower down and lacking the awesome views. Everything was so tempting… Apart from the gold plated price tag!

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a display home! I’m always suspicious of the quality of the mass-build new “estates”. It’s not my type of place to live, but I also wonder how well they can be built when they’re throw up en masse. But I don’t have building qualifications, just a questioning nature!

I looooove display homes. Farmer and I use to look at this one transportable display when we first started dating. Even when we were married and had a young family. We knew the staff quite well and ready to make final decision. We had to get my inlaws nod of approval so I asked the sales manager to get a carton of my FIL’s favourite beer – he got the wrong one?!!! It was so awkward and this guy thought he sealed the deal?!!! Such a shame, we never went back and got a different builder using that companies floor plan 😳😂 #teamIBOT

About Me

Hi, I'm Nicole, busy business manager to our construction company, life coach to our 5 kids, sharing the construction our lives, one project at a time, with the highlight of our 100+ year old Queenslander.